The most important season in years: A look at what's riding on a successful 2021 IndyCar campaign

Nathan Brown | Indianapolis Star

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Graham Rahal said what so much of IndyCar’s fan base and paddock had been thinking. And he didn’t couch it. Didn’t mince words. Didn’t stutter.

“Maybe everybody wants to say the golden era of IndyCar racing was in the early '90s, or the late '90s-early 2000s. But I’ve got to be honest. From a talent pool perspective, the golden era is right now,” Rahal said last month during IndyCar Content Day. “We’re living in the golden era. It’s never been better, and I’m not sure it will get better.

“Every single driver in the series can win. That’s factual. That couldn’t have been said 20 years ago, let alone five years ago.”

That last part? Maybe slightly hyperbolic, but you get the picture. In 2021, IndyCar has started the year with a 24-year-old first-time winner in his Big Three team debut, and a 21-year-old who dominated so thoroughly that media skipped breaking down how he demolished Sunday’s field and went straight to placing him in a Formula 1 car.

A separate 21-year-old was considered to have odds as good as anyone to compete for a title this year and two 40-year-olds may have the best shot. Meanwhile, four 44-plus-year-old drivers may have as good a chance as anyone to win this year’s Indy 500 — three of them in partial-season rides no less.

IndyCar’s rookie class may be the most unique, diverse, intriguing, star-filled trio the series has ever seen.

In a year or two, though, none of that will be novel, and much of it may be gone. This year — and maybe this year only — IndyCar finds itself in an enviable position. A sport that, for decades, has been fighting for (and often losing) TV viewers or, at minimum, borrowing them from time to time, has an embarrassment of riches to propel growth.

Which is perfect, because so much is on the line.

IndyCar’s TV deal with NBC expires at the end of this season. The series’ white whale, a new engine manufacturer, is needed now more than ever because if one isn’t delivered before the next engine formula set to debut in 2023, when will it ever? IndyCar’s deal with NTT Data as the series title sponsor expires at the end of 2021 and its Indy 500 presenting sponsorship with Gainbridge is up in 2022. Close to half of IndyCar’s promoter deals are currently up for negotiation.

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Not to mention that, on May 30, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will host the most highly-attended sporting event in the world since the pandemic began in early 2020 – nearly two times over.

“(As a driver) you definitely have a sense of what’s moving, what needs to move, what’s taking place around you,” said Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden. “Thankfully, all that is up to better people than me. The best, I do feel, is still to come.”

But Conor Daly, perhaps IndyCar’s most adept at cultivating his unique brand — mullet-wearing, desk chair iRacer, part-time NASCAR Truck Series competitor and all — feels a sense of that pressure. And he hopes his competitors do, too.

“As drivers, it’s our job to just try to help as much as we can to make all these things happen,” he said. “We’ve got to go out there and help produce a great racing event. We’ve got to be smart, but we’ve got to be electric. We’ve got to get our personalities out there. We’ve got to be able to put the best show on that we can, and we have to make sure we do our work on social media — whenever we can.

“It’s going to take us. We have to hammer it home to everyone that doesn’t know about IndyCar, hammer it home to everyone that might like F1. We’ve got to do our jobs to help make sure this series takes off as we know it deserves to.”

People around the series love to tell you IndyCar is the best, the purest, the most competitive, the most enjoyable racing series in the world. It’s the one that has Romain Grosjean enjoying being a race-car driver again and competing for top-5s with one of the smallest teams on the grid. It’s one that surprised Felix Rosenqvist with its simplicity when he joined in 2019, and then impressed him with how fierce the competition was with spec cars.

This year, James Hinchcliffe said the higher level of competition has top-5s meaning a little more, and a top-10 finish, even for a Big Three driver, doesn’t feel so frustrating. And what’s more is those who have been around the series for two decades feel the same way.

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“The depth of the field is definitely the highest we’ve had in years,” said Tony Kanaan, a 23-year series veteran. “We can go back to my rookie year.

“People are finding out now that there’s life beyond Formula 1 or any other series.”

Time will tell, though, what Penske Entertainment Corp. president and CEO Mark Miles, IndyCar president Jay Frye and Roger Penske do with all this perceived leverage, energy and momentum over a six-month period in the series that could send ripples over IndyCar’s next decade or more. Here’s where some of those big-picture decisions stand.

IndyCar's car count

If the right teams hit the right amount of success in 2021 – and sponsors take notice – we could continue to see this upward trend of Indy cars on the grid at a level that hasn’t been seen in a decade or more. At the moment, the series has 24 full-time entries, with teams including Arrow McLaren SP, A.J. Foyt Racing, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Meyer Shank considering an additional full-time car – though only one (MSR) is currently running a partial-season car that expands beyond IMS in May.

Add that to Indy 500-only teams Paretta Autosport and Top Gun Racing, who have said they hope to parlay runs in the May 30 race into additional races in 2021 and a full-season slate in 2022, and IndyCar could be looking at 26 or more full-timers a year from now.

That type of increased interest in the series, even with Penske’s takeover, couldn’t have been expected a year ago when teams across the paddock were seeking PPP loans and having to pinch pennies to try to avoid furloughs or layoffs, or not go under altogether.

Part of that, Frye said, comes from last year’s lesson about how to run a more efficient race weekend. The series president says IndyCar believes it found a sweet spot where fans attending races can get nearly the same amount of on-track content in one fewer day of vacation. Teams cut costs, while only losing some practice time and making some Saturdays a bit frantic.

Should this model prove successful this year, it could open the door for brand-new teams, and sponsors, drivers and fans.

“Growth is a good thing,” Frye said. “But it’s how you manage that growth, that’s something you certainly have to keep an eye on.”

TV contract negotiations

Miles told IndyStar he expects dealings with NBC – or other potential broadcast partners – to reach the finish line by the end of June. At the moment, incumbent NBC would appear to be the front-runner, given its nine network broadcast slots this year – a record for IndyCar – and a thoughtful promotional campaign that ties into its Peacock streaming service.

In the end, it will come down to what Penske and the series prioritize most.

“Well, the financial aspects of an agreement are obviously important,” Miles told IndyStar. “And for our sport, we’re very much believing that we’re in the early stages of renewed growth, so exposure is very important, too.”Recent reports have stated that NBC would accept a renewal at the present price of the three-year deal, while IndyCar is said to be looking for more – neither a surprising position to take to the negotiation table. Typical sports broadcast partners are said to be at least marginally in the running as replacements – Fox, CBS and ABC/ESPN – though, with a closer look, none of them appear to be able to offer IndyCar anything significantly better beyond possible monetary considerations.

At the moment, IndyCar is in the middle of an eight-race stretch where it has six races on network TV, which could produce TV ratings that prove pivotal in painting the picture of just how true the story of IndyCar’s momentum is.

An IndyCar schedule with short-term changes, long-term stability

Though not nearly at the level of change as last year, IndyCar still stands likely to make at least one more alteration to the 2021 schedule. Due to another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada – and specifically in Toronto – all signs point to that event being taken off the calendar for the second consecutive year. Notably, this week, F1 canceled this year’s Canadian Grand Prix, originally set to take place four weeks before the Honda Indy Toronto.

Miles has said he doesn’t feel like the series will have to make a decision until early-June at the latest. But given the mandatory quarantine for visitors and that IndyCar races the week before at Mid-Ohio, drastic, massive improvements would need to take place in Toronto to simply be able to build a track and host the paddock, let alone get Green-Savoree Racing Promotions the ticket revenue they need to make it worth their while. That Mid-Ohio race would seem the most likely candidate to transform into a doubleheader to keep 2021 at 17 races.

Miles added he doesn’t anticipate that cancellation to have any affect on the Toronto street race’s future on the calendar, and what’s more, he doesn’t expect many – if any – changes coming to the schedule in 2022.

“I think there will be continuity, and much will be the same,” he told IndyStar. “I don’t know if there will be any changes, and if there was, it certainly would be limited.”

Among the only expected switches would be the addition of another oval track to scale Texas back to a one-race weekend, but Penske has been insistent on staying at 17 races. IndyCar has begun to build history at many of its tracks along with exciting additions at Nashville and the paired IMS road event with NASCAR.

Alternative IndyCar programming hope

With F1’s third season of ‘Drive to Survive’ and NASCAR’s series of secondary programming making headlines in recent months, Miles laments IndyCar doesn't have its own program … yet. Because he guarantees something will come.

In fact, two years ago, it almost did.

Miles said IndyCar had arrangements with "6-12 very credible entities" to develop programming over the past two years; with options including scripted and unscripted series, documentaries, IMAX movies and full-length movies.

“It’s a constant process, and it’s a matter of developing the material and having the scripts or pilots put together and having success at that next step," Miles said. “And we’ve been to the altar. There was a script that was actually a full pilot with a very credible producer with a major outlet, and we just couldn’t quite get it sold.”

With the riveting behind-the-scenes look that ‘Drive to Survive’ offers, there’s a segment of the fan base hoping IndyCar will take that idea and run with it, but it’s not so easy. Part of the allure of F1’s unscripted show is the exclusivity of the access. For years, F1 wasn’t accessible to anyone beyond a very basic surface level. IndyCar, on the other hand, may be the most accessible pro sport in the country.

F1 also has a worldwide audience, something, despite its diverse driver pool, IndyCar lags in. But the series is gaining the personalities and unique driver pool to pull something off, though they’ll need to close a deal soon.

The status of IndyCar's sponsorships with NTT, Gainbridge

Miles expects title sponsor NTT to reach an extension on its original three-year deal with IndyCar “by the first half of this year” – in other words, the end of June. NTT replaced Verizon, who left after 2018 after serving as IndyCar’s title sponsor for five seasons.

Miles said Penske Entertainment Corp. has not begun discussions with Gainbridge about a renewal of its presenting sponsor role with the Indy 500, though he added he has received outside interest in filling the slot.

“This all isn’t to say we aren’t approached by others from time to time about the 500,” he said. “But Gainbridge is also a great partner.”

IndyCar's search for another engine manufacturer

Outside of a solid TV deal, this hunt may be the most important in 2021. The series president remains insistent that IndyCar is not nearing a hard-and-fast deadline when it would need to have a third engine manufacturer for the start of the 2023 season. Then, the series will transition to a 2.4-liter, twin-turbo V6 engine with a hybrid electric energy generation system that should be used as a regenerating boost power source somewhat similar to the current Push-to-Pass system.

But a move that, for years, has been viewed as a dream is quickly becoming close to a necessity. Having stayed with the current engine formula since 2012, you can only imagine the longevity IndyCar hopes to get out of this next move. It would make a new manufacturer extremely disadvantaged if it were to come in a couple years after the V6’s debut, giving Chevy and Honda an advantage of seeing the new engine in competition and tinkering with it in the offseason.

It’s why we haven’t seen a third OEM enter IndyCar since Lotus’ embarrassing exit close to 10 years ago: prospective companies don’t want to come in and be on their back foot. Yes, at the moment, Chevy and Honda are already preparing development or designs of the new engine to begin testing early next year, but a newcomer signing on now would have a chance to join in that collaborative process. Stepping in two years later wouldn’t limit Chevy and Honda’s willingness to help a newcomer get comfortable, but they’re also not going to hand over all that they've learned.

“The manufacturers we’re talking to right now seem to be very excited about the direction,” Frye said. “We’re enthused about the conversations we’re having.”

Ferrari is no longer one of the suitors, bowing out months ago after a pubic courting from IndyCar fans. As other engine manufacturers commit or recommit to sportscar racing in WEC and IMSA, IndyCar fans wonder whether officials have done enough to placate designers’ desires to have a fairly empty canvas to build off of.

“We continue to be optimistic that it’s not a question of ‘whether or not’ but ‘when’ we land a third OEM,” Miles said. “Ultimately, I think it comes down to the buzz in motorsports about IndyCar racing. It’s a series we believe people want to be part of.

“The coverage, the social media, the linear media and other programming is improving, All of this together, it’ll get people looking.”

Email IndyStar motor sports reporter Nathan Brown at nlbrown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @By_NathanBrown.

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